January 17, 2012
King Legacy Sets Action Agenda for 2012
By Hazel Trice Edney
Berry Gordy received the "King Lifetime Service Award" at the annual Martin Luther King Day Breakfast sponsored by the National Action Network. Said Sharpton, "The motel sound equalized America culturally more than anything in its time."
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The packed ballroom filled with hundreds of people at the early morning breakfast in downtown D.C. was a strong indication that the nation is still in laborious pursuit of the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The event, packed with national civil rights figures and Washington insiders, was the annual National Action Network Martin Luther King Day Breakfast. To the clink of silverware, roaring applause and sometimes soul-stirring laughter, speaker after speaker articulated – not only the parts of the dream yet unrealized – but what must be done in order to achieve that goal.
Expounding on this year’s theme, “Don’t Just Celebrate, Emulate” the legendary Motown icon Berry Gordy, an honoree, pushed the audience to intensify the pursuit by adding the word “formulate”:
Gordy said, “We call for all of us to strive to embody the value of the purposeful living that was Dr. King. But is that enough? In my view, we must also formulate a chain of action to achieve the sustained changes that he lived for and died for. Each of us must strive every day to act from our higher selves to reach, to teach, and yes, Rev, to preach for it is the coming together of our ideals and our actions that form the basis of change.”
Rev. Al Sharpton, president/CEO and host at the D.C. breakfast had outlined activities for the coming months that he hopes will indeed affect change. Opening the breakfast remarks, he announced that during the remembrance of Bloody Sunday, beginning March 4th, he will lead a five-day March commemorating the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March.
According to a release, “the march will begin at the Edmund Pettus Bridge ending with a rally at the Alabama State Capitol on Friday, March 9. The March is in support of Voting Rights and to highlight the continuing efforts against Voter Suppression. This includes the efforts to defeat Voter Identification Laws and reverse anti-Immigration laws in the state of Alabama. Secondly, Rev. Sharpton announced that National Action Network will lead a rally on March 27th in Washington, DC, at the United States Supreme Court as arguments are heard on Obama Care.”
Sharpton said, “The effort to make the Health Care Act unconstitutional is not just a challenge to Health Care but a challenge to federal government superseding state government and protecting its citizens. We will be in mass marching and rallying on the day this is argued at the Supreme Court to demand in the name of Dr. King that we stop those that engage in interposing federal law with state law and nullifying federal rights to protect its citizens.”
President Obama’s health care plan was just one among his accomplishments lauded during the celebratory breakfast. As Gordy continued, he praised Obama’s Chief Advisor Valerie Jarrett, who had spoken earlier: “She’s working for the man who has the toughest job on the planet. And he’s doing just an incredible job fighting his way up from deep in a hole and he’s done some wonderful things and we hope for what he will do in the future.”
Reflecting on her work with the President, Jarrett said President Obama knew that change would be difficult.
“Dr. King reminds each of us that change depends on persistence, change requires determination,” she said. “Dr. King said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but with all of us working together, it bends toward justice.’”
President Obama and First Lady Michelle honored King on the National Day of Service by participating in a community service project sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service in conjunction with Big Brothers Big Sisters and Greater DC Cares at the Browne Education Campus.
“Today, we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And we should honor that legacy by acting as drum majors for service and lifting up those less fortunate – not just today, but every day,” President Obama said. “All of us can find a way to give back to our communities, to gain new skills, and to pull together, even when times are hard. That’s what Dr. King believed in, and that’s what will make our country stronger.”
Not only person by person, but deed by deed is the way to accomplish the dream, agreed the former first Black Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, also honored at the NAN breakfast.
“What we have to do is make Dr. King’s dream happen every day,” Herman said, quoting the late Dr. Dorothy I. Height. “‘It is just reward enough to know that I can be in the struggle and that I can continue to be of service to my people.’”
Gordy received the "King Lifetime Service Award."
"He was a talented producer and a talented arranger, but he was also talented as a corporate leader and built the first solid Black business that we know," said Sharpton. "It became the cultural transformative agent of this country because as Dr. King and others integrated lunch counters, Berry Gordy integrated the mentality of the American psyche. Young White kids, way before they went to school with us, learned how to dance with us and learned our music. The motel sound equalized America culturally more than anything in its time."
Herman received the "NAN Breaking Barriers Award." Other honorees included Maurice Cox, recipient of the "Corporate Achievement Award," and James Mitchell, who will received the "NAN Economic Justice Award."
The lineup of speakers – civic heavy weights from the inside and outside of politics – carry diverse responsibilities – all related to missions of equality. Lisa Jackson, the first African-American to head the Environmental Protection Agency, was keynote speaker. She stressed one Dr. King’s often-used words – “mutuality”.
“How can we have clean air if the air is dirty in one community? How can we have clean water if it’s okay to sacrifice the water over here not recognizing that – as any kindergartner will tell you - water flows downstream? How can we say it’s okay for hundreds of thousands of Americans to live at the risk of the peril of flooding because we decided that we should fill in the wetlands that surround their property?” she quizzed. “That’s what environmental justice is. We cannot have clean air unless we have clean air for everyone. We cannot have clean water if some community’s water is sacrificed. It’s just that simple…His legacy is an inspiration. But, his legacy is [also] a responsibility.”
Just his dream of equality and justice are so far from being fulfilled…We are in fact our brother’s and our sister’s keepers…We’ve been marching for jobs and economic justice for more than a century…Our priorities are misaligned in this nation when we spend more time developing smart phones and smart technology instead of smart children…We believe that we can’t rely on anybody to do anything for us that we are not prepared do for ourselves.
Closing out the breakfast, NAACP Chair Roslyn Brock reminded the audience of the noble mindset of a true leader:
“The true test of faithfulness and our commitment to Dr. King’s dream is not how we treat the man who holds a high position in society, but how we treat the man who has no position to hold,” she said. “It’s not how we respond to the call of the man who wields power, but it’s how we respond to the call of the man who has no power to command us.”